Read Online Night of the Wolf by Alice Borchardt - Free Book Online
Authors: Alice Borchardt
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conflagration, the next dark red coals winking like demons’ eyes in the darkness.
Dryas piled on the fuel. The fire warmed the rock and the resulting radiant heat would keep her warm through the night. When only coals glimmered where the fire had been, she rolled herself into a bearskin and slept.
As usual, she dreamed.
Once, and not long ago, dreams had been so much of a torment that she drank herself into a stupor rather than allow a natural rest to fall upon her.
But that bad, very bad time had ended, and though she sometimes woke with tears on her cheeks, the nightmare and her nine-fold could no longer wrench her heart by presenting the dead as still living and the eternally lost as hers. Even in the deepest sleep, she knew her grief and accepted the pain and emptiness.
She was Dryas, the warrior, the teacher of sword, shield, and spear. Expert in methods by which an unarmed man could overcome even a well-armed one. Mistress of the hero’s salmon leap with all its lethal permutations. One who could read the trajectory of an enemy’s sword swing and leap over it to decapitate him. Mistress of the battle spell and the battle madness. Keeper of knowledge, forgotten by even these Gauls. Reader of stone circles and chamber tomb patterns whose origin was lost in the mist of time.
She had accepted the task Blaze set her. She must stop this man-wolf who so savagely harassed Mir’s people, trap him. While Mir and Blaze were speaking, she had roughed out a plan for dealing with this menace. Tonight she’d taken the first steps to carry out her plan, but she certainly didn’t want this supernatural wolf to guess her aims and ends.
No, that wouldn’t do at all.
She woke once as she drifted off to sleep. All that remained of the fire were coals, glowing and blinking in the shadows. Above, the stars in absolute splendor arched over her head. Their cold fire mapped the past, present, and future to an eye able to read them, tracing mystery of time’s beginning and end for all eternity.
Her stomach knotted. She was sure someone was watching her. The wolf or simply one of the dark denizens who guarded the eagle’s temple above.
She didn’t know, couldn’t guess which, but then it didn’t matter, not really. Either could kill her if they chose to do so. She was the bait in her own trap. All she could do was trust in her judgment and press on. This wolf wouldn’t be conquered by sword and javelin, but by stealth and trickery. And while she was uncertain of her skills in this direction . . . she must discipline herself to show no fear. So she simply yawned, turned to one side, and drifted off to sleep.
The Romans came . . .
The women covered the steep slopes surrounding the more level meadows with flax. Resistant to both drought and cold, it grew rampantly, each year reseeding itself. In autumn, the weavers harvested as much of it as they cared to. Imona was one of those weavers. She would move her warp-weighed loom to the dooryard of the rather humble dwelling, feed the chickens, ducks, and geese clustered in the farmyard, then begin work on her latest project.
Summer brought plenty of game with it. The reason, though the wolf didn’t know it, was a bit sinister. The Roman garrison in the valley had felled trees to build its walls and palisades, then burned other forest cover to prevent revolts and ambushes.
Elk, deer, and even hare and wild fowl found these particular clearings filled with an abundance of forage.
So the wolves prospered, taking prey easily and quickly among the old and young in the herds moving up toward the high pastures. Even the most desultory hunt yielded enough food to allow the pack to feast to repletion and then doze and play through the beautiful early summer nights.
At dawn he drifted away and took shelter among the rocky overhangs above her farmstead. He slept off his night meal and, even before the pinkish glow began to burn in the eastern sky, he would watch her movements
Dryas piled on the fuel. The fire warmed the rock and the resulting radiant heat would keep her warm through the night. When only coals glimmered where the fire had been, she rolled herself into a bearskin and slept.
As usual, she dreamed.
Once, and not long ago, dreams had been so much of a torment that she drank herself into a stupor rather than allow a natural rest to fall upon her.
But that bad, very bad time had ended, and though she sometimes woke with tears on her cheeks, the nightmare and her nine-fold could no longer wrench her heart by presenting the dead as still living and the eternally lost as hers. Even in the deepest sleep, she knew her grief and accepted the pain and emptiness.
She was Dryas, the warrior, the teacher of sword, shield, and spear. Expert in methods by which an unarmed man could overcome even a well-armed one. Mistress of the hero’s salmon leap with all its lethal permutations. One who could read the trajectory of an enemy’s sword swing and leap over it to decapitate him. Mistress of the battle spell and the battle madness. Keeper of knowledge, forgotten by even these Gauls. Reader of stone circles and chamber tomb patterns whose origin was lost in the mist of time.
She had accepted the task Blaze set her. She must stop this man-wolf who so savagely harassed Mir’s people, trap him. While Mir and Blaze were speaking, she had roughed out a plan for dealing with this menace. Tonight she’d taken the first steps to carry out her plan, but she certainly didn’t want this supernatural wolf to guess her aims and ends.
No, that wouldn’t do at all.
She woke once as she drifted off to sleep. All that remained of the fire were coals, glowing and blinking in the shadows. Above, the stars in absolute splendor arched over her head. Their cold fire mapped the past, present, and future to an eye able to read them, tracing mystery of time’s beginning and end for all eternity.
Her stomach knotted. She was sure someone was watching her. The wolf or simply one of the dark denizens who guarded the eagle’s temple above.
She didn’t know, couldn’t guess which, but then it didn’t matter, not really. Either could kill her if they chose to do so. She was the bait in her own trap. All she could do was trust in her judgment and press on. This wolf wouldn’t be conquered by sword and javelin, but by stealth and trickery. And while she was uncertain of her skills in this direction . . . she must discipline herself to show no fear. So she simply yawned, turned to one side, and drifted off to sleep.
The Romans came . . .
The women covered the steep slopes surrounding the more level meadows with flax. Resistant to both drought and cold, it grew rampantly, each year reseeding itself. In autumn, the weavers harvested as much of it as they cared to. Imona was one of those weavers. She would move her warp-weighed loom to the dooryard of the rather humble dwelling, feed the chickens, ducks, and geese clustered in the farmyard, then begin work on her latest project.
Summer brought plenty of game with it. The reason, though the wolf didn’t know it, was a bit sinister. The Roman garrison in the valley had felled trees to build its walls and palisades, then burned other forest cover to prevent revolts and ambushes.
Elk, deer, and even hare and wild fowl found these particular clearings filled with an abundance of forage.
So the wolves prospered, taking prey easily and quickly among the old and young in the herds moving up toward the high pastures. Even the most desultory hunt yielded enough food to allow the pack to feast to repletion and then doze and play through the beautiful early summer nights.
At dawn he drifted away and took shelter among the rocky overhangs above her farmstead. He slept off his night meal and, even before the pinkish glow began to burn in the eastern sky, he would watch her movements
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